San Diego's Chase Morrin was awarded the Jazz Education Network's (JEN) 2015 Student Composition Showcase winner at JEN's January 7-10, 2015 conference at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. His composition "Three Brahmin" was one of 4 works chosen by a panel of 4 adjudicators from 24 submissions and was performed at the conference by the world-renowed, Washington D.C.-based Alan Blaylock Orchestra. Chase is no newcomer to awards, especially since he had a small combo composition win at the 2012 JEN conference! The JEN Student Composition Showcase, designed to spotlight young jazz composers, gives students an opportunity to have an original composition recognized and performed at the International level. The winners of the 2015 competition also had the newly added benefit of a private mentoring session with a leader in the Jazz field. Chase's reaction to the award,
"This year was especially exciting and different than the 2012 JEN, first, because my big band chart won apposed to a small combo piece. This meant Alan's Orchestra played my piece which was a real privilege. Second, this year they paired the composers with mentors to chat about music, the future, etc. I was paired with Ellen Rowe. She was incredibly kind and gave me some great advice. I really enjoyed talking with her. "
Before heading back to continue his studies at Harvard, Chase will be performing at Dizzy's San Diego TONIGHT, Friday, 1/16 at 8pm with the trio he performed with during a separate session at the JEN conference, including Justin Grinnell bass and Charlie Weller drums.
Here is the performance of Chase's winning piece "Three Brahmin" by the Alan Blaylock Orchestra,
READ THE FULL ARTICLE for your chance to comment and send shout-outs to Chase, along with more information about his winning piece and the JEN Student Composition Showcase
Chase on his piece and the opportunity to work with the Alan Blaylock Orchestra...
"The Brahmin is piece that fuses a few different influences: Rock, Celtic music, Turkish ornaments, and of course Jazz. The piece is based off a story/fairytale so it progresses in a similar way. It was fantastic having the Alan Baylock Orchestra play it. Three Brahmin is a tough piece yet a few players mentioned that despite the difficulties, it was rewarding."
"Thanks to our Adjudicators for selecting such wonderful winning compositions. They were: Andrew Bishop (UMICH), Frank Carlberg (NEC), Mike Kocour (ASU), and Don Owens (NU, Emeritus). If any of you know of others who would like to be adjudicators in the future, please send me their names for consideration.Our first-time Mentoring Program was also a success, thanks to Alan Blaylock, John Clayton, Michael Kocour, and Ellen Rowe. The student composers all expressed their thanks for the opportunity to spend time with their mentors, so I’m sure we will continue this “perk” of the SCS in future years."
Other 2015 Student Composition Showcase winners included (with links to the Blaylock Orchestra performance of their work),
- “The House at the End of High Street" by Keith Karns
- “What Do You Say?” by Tom Amend
- “Blues for Gabe” by Drew Zaremba
Or, here's a Jazz 88 YouTube Channel Playlist of all 4 winners...enjoy!
